On Saturday at Symphony Hall, Maestro Kevin Rhodes will lead the SSO in Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with soloist Nina Kotova, and his New World Symphony.

“I find that concert-going audience and concert-playing musicians really enjoy a single composer tribute concert,” said Rhodes of his all-Dvorak evening. “If someone hates beautiful melodies, heartbreaking harmonies, and passionate drama, then yeah, sure, this isn’t really going to be their concert, but if you LOVE beautiful melodies, heartbreaking harmonies, and passionate drama, than this is for you!”

The oldest of eight children, Antonin Dvorak was born in 1841 in the village of Nelahozeves, in the present Czech Republic, some 25 kilometers north of Prague. He began voice and violin lessons at age 6, and at age 12, traveled to Zlonice (whose bells would later inspire his first Symphony in C minor) to investigate music in greater depth. The earliest surviving Dvorak composition, “Forget-Me-Not Polka in C,” comes from this period.

Teenage studies at the Prague Organ School made possible Dvorak’s meeting with composer Franz Liszt, and found him playing viola in the Cecilia Society. Like many musicians of his time, Dvorak made his living playing in orchestras, teaching, and serving as a church organist.

String quartets, symphonies, and some forgotten operas were among the compositions of Dvorak’s middle years. His “big break” came when music critic Eduard Hanslick (a supporter), told Dvorak that his music had attracted the attention of Johannes Brahms. Brahms secured a publishing agreement for Dvorak with his own publisher, Simrock, a connection that ensured the future of Dvorak’s music and reputation.

From 1892 to 1895, Dvorak served as the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. It was in his residence at 327 East 17th Street that he wrote both works that Rhodes and the SSO will play on Saturday, works that could not help but blend the influences of the composer’s “New World” with his profoundly planted Bohemian roots.

The Symphony came first, in 1893, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered on December 16, with Anton Seidl on the podium. Dvorak, an exponent of what he called “Negro melodies” (African-American spirituals) and of Native American (which he referred to as “Indian”) music, explained to the New York Herald a day before the concert that while he had not used actual melodies, he had “…simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of Indian music, and using these themes as subjects, had developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, counterpoint, and orchestral color.”

The symphony’s reception was exultant, with each movement warmly cheered and applauded. The sentimental English horn melody in the second movement was adapted in 1922 by William Arms Fisher (a student of Dvorak) in his song “Goin’ Home.”

The Cello Concerto was written for Dvorak’s friend Hanus Wihan, after years of Wihan’s requests for such a piece having been denied. Dvorak’s colleague at the Conservatory, Victor Herbert (the principal cellist in the premier of the “New World” Symphony), completed and unveiled his own cello concerto in 1894, and, spurred on by hearing those performances, Dvorak made up his mind to finally fulfill Wihan’s request.

He began work on the Concerto on November 8, 1894 and completed the score on February 9, 1895. The third movement is a tribute to the his recently deceased sister-in-law, Josefina Cernakova, and quotes her favorite piece, his series of songs entitled “The Cypresses.”

Homesick for his motherland, Dvorak returned to Europe at the end of his Conservatory tenure, and the Concerto was premiered on March 19, 1896, in Queen’s Hall in London, conducted by the composer, but with Leo Stern as soloist instead of Wihan. The reason for Stern’s playing the premiere is apparently not documented, but Wihan certainly went on to perform the concerto many times to great acclaim, including a performance with Dvorak conducting in Budapest in 1899.

The soloist in the Dvorak Concerto on Saturday evening, Russian-born Nina Kotova, is a tremendously interesting young musician. A wide-ranging performer, recording artist, and prolific composer, Kotova has been recognized internationally as one of the outstanding instrumentalist of her generation.

She has appeared as soloist with the Czech Philharmonic, the Russian National Orchestra, the BBC Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic and Royal Opera House Orchestras, the St. Louis and Dallas Symphonies, the China and Hong Kong Philharmonics, and the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg.

She has collaborated with violinists Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, and Maxim Vengerov, guitarist Angel Romero, flutist Sir James Galway, and pianists Lang Lang and Jean-Yves Thibaudet among many others.

She is co-founder of the Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy, and the Festival del Sole in California’s Napa Valley.

Her recordings include a chart-topping debut CD on Philips Classics containing Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo” as well as her own Cello Concerto, premiered in San Francisco in 2000 to rave reviews.

Among her varied artistic collaborations, Kotova has performed the Vivaldi double concerto with Bobby McFerrin, appeard on the MTV Music Awards at the MET with Trent (Nine Inch Nails) Reznor, performed with Sting and Trudy Styler in “Twin Spirits,” collaborated with Jeremy Irons in “Seduction, Smoke, and Music,” (a biographical stage work on the life of Frederic Chopin) and appeared with John Malkovich in Iglesias’ abstract recording “A Registered Patent.”

Rhodes listened to her recording of the Dvorak Cello Concerto while planning the current season, and reported “it was easy to hear that she was someone I would like to work with ... a few phone calls later we happily found that she was available!”

“There is something rather different about a cellist from any other instrumentalist, I find,” Rhodes continued. “There’s no other instrument in which the act of playing it is so vividly on display for the audience. Since they play facing the audience, it’s as if there were to be a camera on the key cover of a piano observing the pianist coming at the keys! She is going to be a dynamo to work with and for the audience to listen and watch.”

A visit to Kotova’s website www.ninakotova.com to listen to exceprts will whet the appetite for this world-class artist’s sumptuous, romantic playing.

Classical Conversations with Maestro Rhodes precedes the performance at 6:30, sponsored by the Dr. Anthony P. Lovell Memorial Foundation. Sponsors for the concert include The Wood Family Foundation, soloist sponsor Bulkley Richardson, and media sponsor The Westfield News Group.

Tickets for the event, priced from $22 to $65, may be obtained online at www.springfieldsymphony.org or by calling the box office at (413) 733-2291.